Temple University SM+C’s #CherryOn Campaign

PRowl Public Relations served as the public relations consultant for Temple University’s Strategic Marketing and Communication Department from September 30, 2014 until April 30, 2014. Our staff helped to execute the #CherryOn campaign and its surrounding initiatives. The main goal of the #CherryOn campaign is to unite the Temple student body. In order to fulfill this goal, PRowl Public Relations conducted a focus group to obtain student feedback about #CherryOn and used this information as a guideline to revamp the #CherryOn campaign. The account launched initiatives, such as Cherry Pickers and food vendor partnerships, in order to increase awareness of the campaign among undergraduate students on social media channels and on Temple University’s main campus. PRowl Public Relations focused on Temple University undergraduate students as the one specific target audience throughout the contract period.

PRowl Public Relations held two focus groups in November 2014 to determine common attitudes towards previous initiatives Temple University had enacted and the university overall. Through analyzing the findings of each group, PRowl Public Relations was able to best target a larger variety of students in the revamp of the #CherryOn campaign and its initiatives.

As a result of focus group findings, PRowl Public Relations enacted their Cherry Picking campaign. In order to encourage Temple University students, and the occasional staff or faculty member, to have greater school spirit and unite in their shared school pride, students were encouraged to wear cherry-colored clothing on Fridays for a chance to be picked for a Temple-themed giveaway. Spirited students were given roles as “Cherry Pickers,” in which they found other students and faculty wearing cherry on Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. during prime on-campus hours and “cherry picked” them. The Cherry Picker gives the chosen student or faculty member a business card detailing specifics of the #CherryOn campaign, explains the mission of the campaign, and prompts the student to post on their social media channels using #CherryOn and tagging @TempleUniv in their post. After posting, the student receives the giveaway.

The re-launch of #CherryOn was designed to be a university-wide campaign that unified Temple’s diverse students and organizations while encouraging school spirit. By “Cherry Picking” students and faculty wearing cherry and rewarding them with giveaways, the account was able to engage with a wide audience on campus. The success of the Cherry Pickers was measured by tracking #CherryOn on social media. Throughout the campaign, PRowl Public Relations found an increase of the use of the #CherryOn hashtag as well as traffic to Temple University’s handle (@TempleUniv). Though PRowl Public Relations did not track metrics of the campaign, we were able to gauge success by manually following the hashtag on social media noting more than 50 new interactions using the hashtag.